It seems that new posts about what the Internet has in store for us down the road pop up every week or two. Some propose that the Internet will deliver more of the same, but different somehow (it’s usually ambiguous just how), while others propose such radical changes that it’s hard to believe they could ever happen. And the truth is, none of us really know what will happen with the Internet in 10 or 15 years.

After all, it was only a little more than 15 years ago that Clifford Stoll wrote the now-infamous “The Internet? Bah!2” post (subtitled: “Hype Alert, Why Cyberspace Isn’t, and Will Never Be, Nirvana”). In that post he detailed why a lot of things just wouldn’t happen online but most of which are now commonplace.

As web designers and developers, what the future holds for the Internet is imperative for our livelihoods. If the Internet has radical changes in store for us, we need to understand how they might effect what we do to earn a living and what we’ll need to do to adapt and keep pace — if that’s even possible.

Look at your mobile phone. If you’re like most tech-savvy consumers, you’ve likely got a smartphone of the Apple or Android variety (or maybe a Blackberry, especially if you’re working in the corporate world). Most of us use our smartphones on a near-constant basis doing everything from checking email to working on projects to entertaining ourselves. How much of all that do you do in your phone’s browser?

The answer is probably “not much”.

We use an app to check email. We use the Facebook app for status updates. We use Twidroid or TweetDeck or the official Twitter app for tweeting. We use a YouTube app to watch videos. We use the Pandora or Last.fm apps for streaming music.

Mozilla Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop. Is this the future of mobile applications?

It’s likely a similar scenario on our desktop or laptop computer. We use apps for a lot of our common Internet-based activities. We even have options to create our own apps with single-site browsers (like Fluid3 or Prism). And Google’s Chrome OS4 is just around the corner with devices already planned to use the web-based OS.

Content is king and design is becoming less relevant – we’re already seeing this with mobile themes Link

Look at how many WordPress sites use one of less than a handful of standard mobile themes. It doesn’t matter what the site looks like in a standard browser; open it up in your mobile browser and you’re often greeted with a page that looks exactly like the last 10 sites you visited.

This is because for most users, design is irrelevant. That’s not to say they don’t appreciate good design. Many of them do (and many of them don’t). But they’re on a website because of the content. They don’t care about visual design, and they don’t care about interaction designer that much, either: as long as the design doesn’t give them a headache or interfere with their ability to find what they want, they don’t really care how exactly it looks like or how exactly it is working. The most widely-used mobile themes offer the content in an optimized format for mobile viewing. That makes users happy.

It’s not just apps that will pull data directly, without the need for an actual website. Devices are making real headway in this manner. We have cars now that can pull information from the Internet for you. Soon devices for Google TV will be out in the marketplace, pulling video content from the Internet without the need to visit a website.

5Soon devices for Google TV6 will be out in the marketplace, pulling video content from the Internet without the need to visit a website.

It’s likely that more devices will add Internet integration in the near future. At some point we’ll probably have refrigerators that automatically generate shopping lists for us (including any available coupons and where the best prices can be found that week): based on previous shopping habits; what we currently have; and our average usage rates for different foods. This is just one example of how online data and content will become infinitely more important than the designs surrounding that content.

It’s impractical to have apps for every website we visit. Most of us visit hundreds or thousands of websites every year. What’s more likely to happen is that most of our content will be delivered through aggregators.

Currently, there are three big players on the Internet that are likely to continue to be the primary content delivery platforms. Who are they? Twitter, Facebook and Google. Think about where you spend most of your time online and you’re likely going to find that those are the sites you visit most often. This market share is only going to increase.

Look at how much content is now aggregated through Facebook. They have pages for virtually every topic under the sun (most of which have canned content taken directly from Wikipedia). Post a YouTube video to Facebook and your friends can watch it right there, without ever leaving Facebook. Even third-party applications like Networked Blogs stick pretty closely to the Facebook environment.

7Post a YouTube video to Facebook and your friends can watch it right there, without ever leaving Facebook. Even third-party applications like Networked Blogs stick pretty closely to the Facebook environment.

Besides that, look at the gaming environment that’s cropped up on Facebook. I’ve lost track of how many updates in my news feed are directly related to games like Farmville or Mafia Wars. Facebook has grown into such a complete online ecosystem that many users might never find a reason to leave. Facebook shows no signs of slowing down either. They’re expanding their business and their reach – a trend that’s likely to continue for as long as they can sustain it.

Google already has its hands in virtually everything online. It has two operating systems (Chrome OS and Android), its own browser, web applications that allow you to do a lot of things that used to be limited to desktop applications and the most-used search engine in the world put it in a pretty solid position to continue to be a major stakeholder in the future Internet.

Google is also one of the more forward thinking and active participants in Internet policy and technology. It has a vested interest in how the Internet shapes up in coming years and will push to shape that Internet in a way that benefits its business model. I can see a future where Google doesn’t just offer a list of search engine results, but actually shows you the content you’re looking for without ever leaving their sites.

If you look at Google’s complete product offering, it’s easy to see that it wants to be the primary online destination for most people (or maybe even all people). Google is firmly positioned in blogging, video, search, business applications, webmaster tools, ecommerce and even phone services – expect its reach to expand even more.

There are always going to be innovative startups online. Most will fall by the wayside soon after they’re started or are absorbed into other established companies. A select few will go on to become major influencers online. It’s unclear at the moment where there’s room for new companies and services online. The idea of more location-based services (going beyond FourSquare, et al) is probably the most promising as well as services that go beyond normal Internet activities and integrate into daily life more.

If everyone is accessing web content through an app rather than a browser, then no one will care what a website looks like. The way it functions and the content it delivers will become the paramount concerns to users. There will be no more balancing of form and function on a website; function will override form.

Form will retain a place in the design of apps. In all likelihood, content will be open to the extent that APIs will be developed that anyone can then use in application development – so the form in which an app displays that data will become what separates the good from the bad, the great from the mediocre.

There are some big advantages to this kind of model where apps and a small number of content aggregators deliver and control most of the content online. One issue is bandwidth. If there’s no design being transferred to a device (because the application on the device already includes all the design elements), that saves bandwidth. As more and more activities are done online, we’re going to have to consider infrastructure costs. Lower bandwidth use per site will result in more bandwidth available.

Another advantage is that there’s more potential for user control. Users can define their preferences on their device and see content in the way they want. This especially has positive implications when it comes to accessibility. Those who need special settings because of a disability will no longer have issues with unviewable content.

Let’s face it: the technologies upon which the Internet is built aren’t the most efficient ones available. Part of this has to do with building upon infrastructure that isn’t as good as it could be. The Internet has to be backwards-compatible over very long periods of time. We can’t just suddenly change things, even if it is to make things work better in the future, if it causes half the sites out there to no longer function.

With a content-based Internet that uses device-side applications for displaying data and performing tasks, we can create more efficient applications. We won’t need to make sure each application can handle a huge variety of content and processes (as browsers currently have to do), because we’ll know exactly the kinds of data that application will need to process.

Practically, users will have a more integrated experience with the content they view and the services they use online. The Internet will become even more a part of everyday life, incorporated to such an extent that it’s seamless. It’s already happening in bits and pieces.

Again, look at your phone. You probably use apps or widgets for things like checking the weather or generating a shopping list. These apps will become more integrated and will work better with the data available online. For example, you could use that shopping list to automatically find the best prices on products, either online or at your local stores. In all likelihood, that data would be aggregated through a service like Google Base.

An online profile will become even more important for users. Rather than setting up every device or service you have, you’ll simply authorize the device to grab your profile and preference information from the web. Security and privacy experts will have a field day with this, but most consumers will opt to use it anyway if it means the difference between going through a two-hour manual setup process or clicking a button and authorizing it to set everything up automatically.

So what does this all boil down to? If the web becomes app-based and content-based, where do web designers fit in — if at all? The bad news is that if the Internet starts relying much more heavily on access via app rather than browser, there’s going to be a lot less demand for web designers. Companies won’t see the point in hiring someone to create an entirely bespoke website when they can just use a template and then feed all their content to Google and Facebook and Twitter.

Developers, on the other hand, will likely see a boom in business. A lot of money will be exchanging hands for apps that work better than current offerings and apps that might be able to undermine the big players. Of course, all these apps also need design work, but it will be a lot less demand than there is now for website design. It’s likely a lot of designers will need to expand their offerings to cater to content creation rather than just web design.

Websites aren’t going to go away any time soon. It’s likely that there will be a bigger market for templates and themes as companies stop paying for custom designs. And there will be certain kinds of sites (like portfolios or art projects) that will always want to be designed.

Multimedia content will also still have a strong market. Those who can produce high-quality videos and even web-based apps (for things like Chrome OS) will have a strong business for years to come.

If there’s a definite winner in this possible future Internet, it is the content creators. If the only thing that sets one company or organization apart from their competition, then those who can create high-quality content will be in high demand. The thousands of dollars that a company used to be spent on website design will be funneled into website content instead.

Users will also benefit as they’ll have a more integrated, customized experience. Their version of the Internet will be tailored specifically to them, based on their own wants and needs. They’ll get content in the manner they prefer and find most usable.

Application developers will also likely win in all this. While the APIs and the data available will be pretty standardized, the manner in which it’s displayed will become a battleground of creativity. Innovation here will be key, doing something different and better than what everyone else is doing is the only way an app will stand out.

Update (26.09.2010): We’ve got quite many negative responses for this article, like Web Designers Won’t Die Out, They Will Transition. At Smashing Magazine, we are aiming for strong, high quality articles and after reading the article we do think that it raises some valid points, and now in retrospect we understand why the title and the content may appear to be aggressive. We also can see where the accusation of trying to be sensationalist comes from. But it was never the intention of the article.

We are trying to do our best to provide only relevant and high qualilty content, but apparently sometimes we see our things differently than our readers do. We do appreciate constructive criticism like the above post on Drawar. And we are listening to what you are saying. And we will certainly keep it in mind for our future articles.

Aaron Couch

Thought provoking and well-balanced article. One caveat for your conclusion that content providers will win. That will likely be true as long as level playing fields, especially the level playing field established by the practice of net neutrality, are preserved. We need to be vigilant as telecos work to carve up the interwebs into tiered networks and walled-off gardens. Especially as more content is available on wireless and other non-PC devices.

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Nick

I definitely agree that content is going to be a big factor with the semantic web being the next phase. However, I do not think that apps will be taking over web design, but instead be an integral part/addition to the web designer’s tool box. I think apps for facebook, twitter, etc that integrate into sites will merely be a slowly dying trend. Remember AOL keywords? Every commercial on TV was all about them. Now it’s “friend us on facebook, be our fan on facebook, follow us on twitter, etc.”. Same situation, though I think now that way more people are using the internet than back in the day of AOL, internet trends take a much longer time to die out or change, so these elements will stick longer.

And as for templates, I don’t think they will be in use by anyone who is trying to be credible. I cringe every time I hear a client suggest I use one. Unique design leaves unique impressions, and hopefully that will always be the case.

jhoysi

It’s interesting that the article seems to be placing typography and use of space outside the realm of “design.” Our JOB as web designers is to put the information in front of the user, making the experience as simple as possible. Yes, branding and other elements creep in to the design as well, but that can still be done elegantly, seamlessly, and much more subtly as the web continues to evolve.

I think you’re wrong to say that the future will not include web designers, but that our focus in who we are designing for (users instead of clients) will shift even more dramatically. In turn, our focus in what and how we design will also shift.

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bchild

1. Whilst I agree that apps will become more prominent as a medium for accessing content from the web. Cameron seems to be comparing Technology “now” with the internet in the “future” – They are not on the same playing field. There is a reason why there are so few website templates available for the mobile internet. It’s not because consumers “don’t care about design” – It is because, AT THIS POINT IN TIME mobile browsers struggle to render full size websites properly – However, as the mobile internet becomes more popular more mobile browsing devices will be manufactured, and these will be able to handle standard size websites much easier (think ipad-like devices etc..) –

2. Secondly, Cameron has assumed that people will favour their mobile device over a Desktop machine or laptop… I do not believe this to be true. A Desktop/Laptop is a tool, not just for accessing content, but also for creating it! – I’d be willing to bet that Cameron didn’t write this article using her mobile phone!?!? – She most likely used a Desktop/Laptop … she states that “If there’s a definite winner in this possible future Internet, it is the content creators.” – Does she envisage that these content creators will use a Desktop/Laptop to create their content, and then turn to their smaller “app-filled” mobile device to access other content they are interested in? – No? – As matter of convenience, they would simply use their desktop and browser to access the content.

There’s a time and a place for mobile apps just as there is a time and place for full websites! – This will never change.

3. Finally, there is an assumption by the Cameron that design is just “making things look pretty” – A very naive assumption, in my opinion. She states that “…as long as the design doesn’t give them a headache or interfere with their ability to find what they want, they don’t really care how exactly it looks…” – Completely failing to recognise that “not interfering with the ability to access information” IS design!!! In fact that is almost the definition of Good UI Design;

“defining how to present content in the most effective, economic way possible whilst maintaining consistent accessibility and aesthetics” – Richard Bland, Web User Interaction, July 2010

I think that what we can take away from Cameron’s article is that, in the future, the term “Web Designer” will not just refer to websites, but also mobile app design aswell, perhaps as part of the “Web Design Package?” – On that note, web designers do not need to worry so much… this opens the prospect for more work! Not less.

Bokatamz

slegolego

John Miller

If this was a term paper in school it would pass. Its like saying the clothing industry should get rid of its designers because people will not care in the future so long as they have something to cover themselves. But lets welcome you into the REAL world of the Internet. Few CRITICAL points you over looked:

1. We DON’T design websites for companies, even their staff could care-less. We design them for their customers. So customers are King (not content) and content comes after customers. So we find out what clients want first, then we put it in there in the way they want it.
2. iPhones and other dagdets: we are the ones who do that too. Am sure you forgot. Without us, no content on gadgets (the boss can’t do that.)
3. Entertainment is not the only thing we do on the internet. Serious business is also happening. We shop, buy, compare etc before making a decision. Well designed websites save clients thousands of dollars they would otherwise use in phone calls and transit. Oh, and did I mention that the reason we find information quickly on the internet depends on design? Can I also mention a majority of visitors to any site have no time to read? So we use icons etc to catch attention?

AM JUST SCRATCHING MY HEAD WONDERING, IF ITS NOT A DESIGNER WHO PUTS CONTENT FOR DISPLAY ON THE INTERNET (USING TAGS) NO MATTER HOW EXCELLENT OR SHODDY, WHO DOES?!?

I can go on and on and on. Designers go through hundreds of websites each day and we see trends every morning when taking coffee. Your article CAN’T even be considered as an opinion! Do more research!

ciprian

I can take this as an opinion, not as a rule. And if I might have an oppinion I’d say this is like saying fashion might become a thing for the past because people will not care how clothes looks like, but rather they’ll care to feel warm in their clothes, so fashion designers won’t have a place in the industry.

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Consumer Slave

Exactly, and there will always be the need for someone to design those functional and practical clothes to ensure they are functional and practical. If you leave it to someone who knows nothing about designing clothes they will make a horror show of short sleeves, tight gussets, weak seams, badly placed zips etc.

Even the article above confirms that website design will be less important so long as it doesn’t give the user a headache or make them want to leave – experienced designers know how to do this.

The likelihood is that there will be higher demand for experienced designers and a lot less demand for new and inexperienced ones.

….and no, developers generally cannot design well at all.

There is also likely to be a backlash against Facebook and Google when people begin to realise the criminal way in which their personal data is being used and that government intelligence agencies in collaboration with the incoming global fascist one world state are using these platforms to psychologicially profile people and censor and eliminate all ‘thought crime’.

There are good alternatives, competition is healthy!

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Numbskull

foyomind

I think the profession ‘webdesigner’ goes very well hand in hand with ‘ui design’ or ‘interaction designer’, whatever one wants to call it. For that reason i think that even it’s for a website or for a app, it still needs a good and nice design and UI.
My guess is that already a lot of app builders/designers are also webdesigners.

Besides that, i realy don’t believe in the future of apps! Wow that’s a real statement isn’t it? :) Yes it is! But for some reason i think the range of platforms is becoming too wide for everyone to just keep up and building the same single app for different platforms. It’s getting way too expensive for most of the businesses.

Plus we have the powerfull development of html. like html5; almost everything is possible with html5. The BIG plus: No need to build for different platforms, just once and for mobile devices maybe some screen adjustments. But that won’t be a problem.

I could go on and on about this but my guess?: Yes there always will be apps, but overall HTML and co. will win the battle and webdesigners will evolve with it and remain supreme ;)

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reekster

I totally agree – It’s all gonna be about GUI/UX design and interaction in the future. As technology develops more into touch and motion detection with design and displays, design can only progress with it. But I think minimalism will play a big part. The possibilities are pretty exciting really; but graphic design and visual interaction will always be a big part of digital progression and user experience. Without design and imagery… content would be boring :)

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JulesLt

Agreed – it’s likely that HTML/CSS will become increasingly important within the App space – there’s already a variety of x-platform toolkits for producing ‘native’ Apps using web technologies as the UI framework – Palm/HP’s WebOS and ChromeOS will only increase this. Apps need design as much as pages do.

And I say this despite the fact that as a software developer with experience of other desktop application frameworks, I’m still unconvinced that HTML and CSS are the right tools for the job. But then I didn’t rate Intel or Windows in the 80s, preferred ADA to C++, and know from experience that popular technologies with a low learning curve usually beat superior but lesser known ones.

Equally, the web has always been about content. It’s just early on people who couldn’t / wouldn’t / didn’t see the point of design would use GeoCities, or Frontpage, or whatever tool-of-the-day was available. Now maybe they use Blogger or WordPress, which is slightly better for our eyes! Equally a lot of smaller stores and sellers can now use Etsy or Folksy.

And of course web designers themselves often build on increasingly standardised underlying software platforms, which in turn offer basic templates, to speed up the process.

But I don’t think any business that would previously have actually employed a designer to create their web presence, brand, will shift over to a standard template.

For most businesses, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter may be alternative channels to reach their customers, but they don’t want their brand subsumed into someone else’s.

A final point – the desire to build once for All Platforms is strong amongst developers and designers – but we should always stop and understand why users choose particular platforms. X-platform apps were often rejected by Mac users because the developers had little understanding of how the Mac OS differed from Windows in terms of basic UI conventions, keyboard shortcuts, integration with the wider system (i.e. not using the system-wide dictionary and keychain).

Now I don’t own any smartphone or tablet (yet) but I would wager that there are already similar platform differences, and of course device differences (owners of phones with GPS or other positioning would expect your code to use this feature, for instance).

The right way to do this is to build a re-usable core, but understand the differences between platforms – and make sure your clients understand any trade-offs.

(Lowest common denominator cross-platform may often be the right answer – many firms don’t have the budget for anything else. On the other hand, if you’re designing something to sell via the iPhone App Store, don’t think that you can do it by owning an Android phone and never using anything Apple).

Mrityunjay

Jesper

I believe that it’s just part of the flow in the way things develop…. It’s the exact same thing with the fashion industry.

In this case we will just have to wait until every single PC, notebook, iPad, smartphone is just overloaded with apps. At that point it won’t be new anymore and it will need something to spice it all up a little. Usually the first steps in doing so is enhancing the aesthetic feel….

Nice moment to share my favourite quote… “All art is quite useless.” by Oscar Wilde… But we’ll always want to make life look a little better!

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Elwin

Nick

There are a couple different factors at play here. Consider the professional photography industry and other niche markets. I guarantee that if your business puts up a template, you’ll be laughed at. Templates have no business in a world where personalization trumps everything else. Prospective clients are going to a website not just for content, but for the experience that the brand is willing to offer. Not to mention that if you’re in the business of selling yourself, a high profile custom website speaks volumes about your dedication to your chosen niche market.

Paul

With the way this article overlooks obvious facts I’m surprised it’s not on Fox News.

Just because Facebook and Google and whatever other content aggregators you want to list want everything to come through them doesn’t mean the content will originate with them. There will always be original websites and new web applications that may or may not integrate with these mainstream players.

It seems like you think there is some kind of trend here but I’d say what you’re claiming is the direct opposite of what’s happening. For instance, while I may find a lot of links through Twitter on my iPhone or iPad, when I click those links, i still see the original website (and it’s design).

This honestly seems like dis-information or some sort of scare tactic to me. Please think through this stuff in the future.

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Aleksandar

Agree 100%. I don’t see the companies changing their original web sites for a “Facebook fan pages” in the future. There’s more on the internet than just watching YouTube videos, updating statuses and social networking. I think that web design trend is going towards more “minimalistic” designs, but that’s still a designers job to make it look appealing.

Karl Marx

Left wing media? Where? That hasn’t existed since the mid 1980’s…
All we have now is right wing ‘social’ democratic media, and super-strength right wing, bordering on fascist media. The agony of choice!

Andreas Ostheimer

That’s also my point: as much content I find on fb and twitter, there is almost NO original content there. fb and twitter are “just” aggregators and only a few businesses have decided to leave their website behind and just market on facebook.
I just read about those companies and it seems to me as their decision to leave the web and only present themeselves on fb was based on the fact that their websites didn’t perform well and the budget for doing both fb and website isn’t there…

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Mick

I’m glad to see someone else see’s the potential change in a web designer’s future. It can be a little unnerving, especially you’re unable or unwilling to adapt. These days we are expected to be able to do more than create icons and web layouts, with many seeking light programming as well as design.

One thing I think a lot of designers have that will never go away is usability. Something can be designed beautifully and programmed rock solid, but if people can’t use it, it’s useless. So I think that is one thing a lot of designers have up on the content creators and programmers. Maybe we are evolving from web designers to interface designers?

Either way, really nice article Cameron.

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DED

Interface designers already exist and have for decades ( even before the WWW). They study UX design and HCI and Human Factors. That’s a point the author overlooks, all those apps she sites as evidence are designed. Computer science learned a long time ago that leaving interactions in the hands of developers who did not understand cognition lead to poorly designed interfaces. She says users don’t care about interaction design. Well why should they it should be so ingrained in the app that it is invisible. Because it is guaranteed that a bad design in terms of usability will make people notice, at least in the past it has on PCs and even on terminal applications.

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Serge

Very good article and a pretty scary, if you ask me. To think that the web will end up being nothing but content fed through a couple apps is not exactly the freedom that the web allows. Personally, I don’t want to get all my content through one source. I prefer going to different blogs to read on specific topics. I like stumbling onto sites while searching for various things online. I like how the design of a site adds to the personality of the content it houses. The thought of companies feeding their info into some ‘content meat grinder’, and losing their individuality online, wouldn’t be much different than automakers churning out their cars under one, bland, gigantor brand. Designers exist for a reason. If we’re relegated to doing nothing more than making templates, then the whole design world will be nothing but a sad assembly line of photoshop mediocrity.

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Matt Berridge

Interesting as I was just thinking about #NewTwitter and it being an effort to draw some traffic back to their own site rather than people using third party clients like Tweetdeck. This is vitally important from an advertising/revenue perspective.

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Catlips

I dunno. Sounds like the content creators will be the big losers here. I mean, what’s in it for them unless there’s some kind of pay-for-use model? Why spend your money providing content for an aggregator and getting nothing in return? The bad content will chase out the good…

Oh, shit. I forgot. That’s what’s happening right now, isn’t it.

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Tyler Herman

Danny

You make a lot of good point. – though scary ;) I’m wondering about the idea of companies using templates and themes. Specifically when it comes to branding. Companies wouldn’t want to appear to be cookie cutter.

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